1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management device, a method of controlling the management device, and a computer-readable storage medium storing a computer-executable process causing a computer to execute the control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
For performing communications by using wireless local area networks (LANs) of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-802.11 series, wireless parameters including data on a communication channel, a network identifier (SSID), an encryption method, an encryption key, an authentication method, an authentication key, etc. should be set to a device. Usually, the above-described wireless parameters are set by using a user interface of the device, which is laborious. Particularly, it is difficult to input a character string including the network identifier, the encryption key, etc. to a device other than a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as a PC), where the device may be a digital camera, a printer, etc.
In recent years, therefore, technologies for easily setting the wireless parameters have been proposed. For example, methods allowing for setting the wireless parameters by using a portable storage medium have been disclosed in US2005-0272371 (corresponding to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-007351), US2005-0015467 (corresponding to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-229872), and US2005-0043019 (corresponding to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-096146 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-013718). However, the above-described wireless-parameter setting is performed for each different network an apparatus is being connected to. For example, if wireless parameters used for a home network are set to a wireless-communication apparatus, wireless parameters used for an out-of-home network should be set to the wireless-communication apparatus for an out-of-home network.
Further, for accessing the home network from the out-of-home network, the user should set parameters other than the wireless parameters, where the parameters include data on an Internet protocol (IP) address of a gateway router used for the home network, for example.
The present invention has been achieved to easily determine whether the wireless-parameter setting should be performed.